Breakfast on Pluto" (2005) follows the life of Patrick "Kitten" Braden, a young trans-woman living in a small town just south of the Republic-Northern Ireland border. The film was written and directed by Neil Jordan, who also wrote and directed "The Crying Game," (1992), which I reviewed last week and which similarly explores gender identity. While I was somewhat conflicted about "The Crying Game," I wholeheartedly love "Breakfast on Pluto."
"Breakfast on Pluto" is a movie that purports to challenge gender-normativity and actually does. The audience is expected to have more of an affinity for Kitten than for her friends, family or boyfriends. Thus, the film focuses on how Kitten views herself as opposed to how others view her. "Breakfast on Pluto" is based on a novel of the same name, in which Kitten narrates her own story. The film version is divided into multiple sections with chapter titles, such as "In Which I Was Abandoned" and "My Foster Mother's Shoes," with Kitten often narrating the beginning of each section.
Kitten's story begins on the doorstep of a church where her mother abandons her as a child. A verbally abusive foster mother subsequently raises her. Kitten also struggles in her Catholic school, where the boys and girls are separated according to gender. Nonetheless, Kitten manages to create her own niche within the confines of this system. Placed in the boys' program, Kitten lobbies to take Home Economics with the girls and learns to make her own clothes.
Although Kitten's environment throws many obstacles in her way, "Breakfast on Pluto" presents her as a three-dimensional person instead of as a victim. It subverts the "outcast trans-person" narrative, in which transgender characters are deemed "the other." Kitten is not a loner; she has a tight-knit circle of friends whose evolution as a group is chronicled throughout the movie.
After Kitten's friend Lawrence is killed by a bomb, she moves to England to look for her mother. A love song aficionado, Kitten expects life to emulate these songs and presents her search for her mother as a great mystery, calling her the "Phantom Lady." She also finds solace in fantasies, including one very funny sequence in which she envisions herself infiltrating the IRA and killing all its members with a spray from her Chanel No. 5 bottle. This combination of na??vet?© and optimism propels Kitten through her quest, despite the many challenges she faces. She stumbles through life, falling into situation after situation, some quite funny and others quite horrible. Kitten's loneliness in England leads her to latch onto anyone she can, including the policemen who arrest her and the men who pay her for sex.
Kitten eventually locates her mother but does not reveal her true identity when she goes to meet her. Upon her own admission, Kitten moves to England looking for her mother, but ends up finding her father - a flawed yet loving priest who comes to England in order to bring her home. By the end of the film, Kitten has created her own unique family unit. She lives with her father - the town priest - her childhood best friend and her best friend's baby, whom she helps raise.
My one issue with "Breakfast on Pluto" is Kitten's apparent chastity. While the book depicts many of Kitten's romantic encounters with men and women alike, the movie refuses to even show her kissing anyone. The movie did not have to be as explicit as the book, but the absence of any on-screen romantic interaction seems to imply a lingering discomfort with non-normative gender identity. While I find this lack of romantic representation problematic, I still enjoyed the humorous and heart-rending study of self-definition and self-expression that "Breakfast on Pluto" provides.
Next week's film: "Circle of Friends."
Megan Clark is a senior who is majoring in English and history. She can be reached at Megan.Clark@tufts.edu.
